Sandro Perri Plays Tiny Mirrors

The last two weeks have been pretty good ones when in comes to new releases, with the new Jens Lekman coming out tomorrow, and the new Beirut which came out last Tuesday. The Beirut is particularly good. Zach Condon has matured quite well with this release, as he allows his band to be more involved in the creative process while also adding Owen Palette's gift of string arrangements to the mix. It's a good step in the right direction and I am very interesting to see where they go next.

However, as good as both the Lekman ('Opposite of Hallelujah' has to be one of the hits of the year), and the Beirut album are, the album that has hit me the hardest recently is Sandro Perri's first full length Tiny Mirrors which came out last Tuesday on Constellation records. The album is absolutely stunning. It features a Perri whose has long been dedicated to exploring interesting sounds and textures in music (see Polmo Polpo, Double Suicide or Glissandro 70 for example), now translating that into a more roots-based setting. He uses traditional folk/roots instruments (acoustic and slide guitars, lap steel, etc...) but in very 'un-rootsy' kinds of ways. Each song is constructed in such a way that it often appears to be going wrong. There are frequent mistakes, sounds that you think really shouldn't be there, and missed notes. Yet you still get the sense that this is the way it's intended to be. Constantly screwing up, yet still absolutely beautiful.

In order to accomplish this Perri has surrounded himself with an awesome backing band as the album features Drumheller (Eric Chenaux on guitars, Doug Tielli on trombone, John Jowett on euphonium, and Nick Fraser on drums) on most of the tracks. They add spectacular textures to an already well conceived project and it's truly fun to witness how it all plays out.

Then there's the lyrics. Sandro Perri has only recently begun having lyrics inserted into his music. Looking at the lyrics on Tiny Mirrors you wouldn't be able to tell. Rather than attempting to use words as a means to give a song further meaning ('this songs about ...'), Perri sees them as yet another tool to explore sound. His lyrics are about adding yet another texture to the music and comes up with lines that, while not making much sense on there own, completely fit in with the rest of the music. For example;

'And now it bursts into birthing song
You don't need a bird to give chirp to your song
And when your touch is a little too much
Energy doesn't need your lunch!'

All of this is to say that whatever you're doing tomorrow, make sure you have time to head over to Music Trader and check out this fascinating release. Or just buy it here It should definitely make your day.

Until next time...